Their deputy directory Sean O'Brien, "as it depends on nonfree software for the boot process, leaving an important part of the computer outside the user's control." But they're now decrying "an even more intrusive restriction on user freedom" — the binary-blob bootloader… Read More »
BoingBoing reports: Mark Stephens, better known under the pen name Robert X. Cringely, died last week at 73. Stephens chronicled the tech industry of the late 1980s and early 1990s — the age of Bill Gates' rise, Steve Jobs' repose, the dawn of the world wide web — and produced the famed documetary Triumph of the Nerds, based on his own… Read More »
The Washington Post, "and the U.S. government has not said whether he was acting alone or as an agent of a foreign government." But "there are signs that the U.S. government is exploring the latter possibility," they add, citing… Read More »
A Philadelphia newscast reports on a grey-haired lady who allegedly refused to move out of the path of a delivery robot as a form of protest because "I know they're taking the jobs of human delivery workers." She was arrested, but says her actions were protected speech: According to police, Marvin repeatedly blocked the robot's path and ignored… Read More »
For more than a year, The New York Times followed recipients of a universal basic income program who received $1,330 a month for an entire year. There were benefits, but also the everyday challenges of being poor, and turning their life around "did not turn out to be quite that simple." Across Silicon Valley, experimental guaranteed income… Read More »
"When state lawmakers attempt to rewrite how the internet works," argues an EFF blog post, "users rely on courts to recognize that laws can't make technical impossibilities a reality." "That's why we were happy to see that a court has blocked Utah's attempt to outlaw the privacy protections of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)." In a win for… Read More »
MapQuest creates a new layer (that can be toggled on and off), Gizmodo reports: After promising not to comply with the Trump administration's "Lake America" gimmick, the platform announced a new "Surveillance Layer" that displays the locations of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including those from Flock Safety. Per MapQuest, its new… Read More »